‘Het leven is een feest, maar je moet zelf de slingers op hangen’
It’s a Dutch expression meaning essentially ‘life is what you make of it’, and in this context, ‘Your Birthday is what YOU make of it’!
And I planned to make mine awesome!
Which is why I gathered all my best friends to celebrate my 30th birthday in my favorite city last night. And also why at this moment, I’m probably still in bed with a bit of a (or a hellish) hangover headache. You understand I wrote this little piece ahead of time.
I love celebrating my birthdays, and my 30th wasn’t going to be any different.
Life is just getting started right!
So I wanted to share some ‘wisdom’ from my twenties.
If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that life doesn’t ever go according to how you thought it would when you were 16, or 20 or even 25.
Mine did not go how I thought it would, and I’m all the happier about it.
What I’ve learned in the last 10 years, or better, what I would tell my Twenty year old self, is to let go of all that self-doubt. YOU CAN DO IT! Just start, just try. You don’t have to be able to do it all. BUT don’t be lazy because you think you can’t.
Stop wanting to do everything perfectly. Sometimes good-enough really is good-enough. Stop living your life with FOMO or wanting to have that perfect Instagram life, it’s not real. Follow your gut, spend time with your friends, but don’t feel bad about wanting to spend a Friday night on the couch binge-watching Netflix or reading a book, just be you. Always be YOU.
And most of all, I want my twenty year old self to know that you do not have to have everything figured out at 30. Nobody really has. I know now that the not knowing is what makes live exciting.
And if you guys don’t believe me, listen to my favorite podcast, Directionally Challenged, because we’re all a bit directionally challenged sometimes.
All my love,
Denise
Wander Between the Lines 